Venmo Prepares to Roll Out Scheduled and Repeat Payments Feature

Venmo is reportedly giving users an easier way to make repeat or scheduled payments.

The new feature would let customers schedule payments — or requests — on a one-time, weekly, monthly or bi-monthly basis, The Verge reported Wednesday (Oct. 2).

The peer-to-peer (P2P) payments company tells the news outlet that this service will become widely available in the app “in the coming weeks.”

The report notes the practical applications for the new service, like establishing scheduled payments between roommates for their share of rent or utilities or issuing recurring reminders to payers who forget to pay on time.

Venmo says the feature will be supported on the company’s Teen Account service, letting parents set a schedule for allowances or set up payment for birthday money ahead of time.

Introduced last year, the Teen Account — which also comes with a debit card — lets parents and legal guardians open a Venmo account for kids aged 13 to 17 to let them send and receive money.

According to the Verge, an email and push notification reminder will be sent to users a day before a scheduled payment once it’s set up. Users can also set end dates for scheduled payments and requests and manually cancel ongoing recurring payments and requests in Venmo’s settings once they’re no longer required.

As PYMNTS wrote in August, the rise of P2P payment apps — a space initially dominated by the likes of Venmo, but now evolving to include other players — has transformed the way we manage our finances.

“With 51% of Americans using P2P regularly, consumers are increasingly expecting their primary financial institutions to offer P2P capabilities,” that report said.

“The appeal is clear: convenience, speed, and the added security of dealing with a trusted financial partner. As competition intensifies, banks that fail to provide P2P services risk losing customers to FinTech disruptors.”

The report added that in spite of their popularity, P2P platforms still wrestle with a persistent challenge: fraud. Impostor scams, in which criminals impersonate friends or family to dupe victims, have grown in sophistication, costing Americans more than $2 billion last year. Many of these attacks happened via P2P payment channels.

“The irreversible nature of many P2P transactions exacerbates the problem, as victims often find it difficult to recover lost funds,” PYMNTS wrote. “This has led to a growing distrust of P2P services, hindering wider adoption, particularly among older demographics. The report highlights that 28% of P2P payment users say they have been scammed, with Generation Z and millennials being the most vulnerable.”